Very, very good e-mail lists  and an internal debate over whether to use them. I'm getting really tired of the ads for Romney campaign trips coming from this list serve, writes one young Mormon.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- At Mitt Romneys first rally here earlier this week, there were plenty of hints that the enthusiastic crowd of 1,000 was stacked with Mormons. Kids walked around in BYU sweatshirts, moms chatted about LDS youth groups, and at least one supporter was overheard talking about making phone calls for the candidate as part of "family home evening" -- a weekly family night the church encourages its members to hold.

But while it's no secret that Romney's coreligionists have swelled the ranks at campaign stops from Des Moines to Reno, one question about the Mormon vote has gone largely unanswered this primary season: How, exactly, have they gotten so organized?

"We heard about it from some friends in our [LDS] ward," said one woman standing outside a rally held in a Las Vegas hotel supply warehouse. "We're so glad we could make it." Another Mormon standing nearby chimed in, "Everyone we know is voting for Mitt!"

The secret to the grassroots success lies, in part, in the unique national structure and scrupulous record-keeping of the Utah-headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the church itself is politically neutral, it contains the structural groundwork for one of the most organized and effective voting blocs in the countrysomething Romney is poised to capitalize on.

Heres how it works

In contrast with most other religions in the country, the Mormon Church is nationally organized in a strict, top-down fashion, like a corporation. Every congregation in the U.S. reports back to church headquarters in Salt Lake. Whenever an individual is baptized -- either as a child or as a convert -- local ministers take down the persons name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, and feed the information into a national database maintained by officials in Salt Lake (and only accessible to certain church leaders).

From there, the individuals are assigned to geographically-determined congregations -- or wards -- of about 200-300, which they attend on Sundays. Their contact information is filtered into a local ward list, which is distributed to all local congregants for planning purposes--from coordinating Sunday school, to working out the logistics for church barbeques.

For decades, these ward lists were printed out and distributed after Sunday services, but in recent years the system has migrated online to LDS.org, where Mormons create logins to access the contact information for every fellow believer in the area.

For active Mormons, wards often become the center of their social universe: its not uncommon for members to visit their local chapels three or four times a week for various activities and meetings. Additionally, Mormons participate in home and visiting teaching programs, which require them to visit certain ward members on a monthly basis. In this context, ward lists become invaluable tools for Mormons daily lifeinevitably finding their way into Google groups, listservs, and cell phones.

They also frequently become political tools.

Working the wards

The church expressly forbids using these directories for non-religious purposes, but that doesnt deter many politically active Mormons from working their ward lists to get out the vote. Reports abound of members blasting out congregational e-mails soliciting support for partisan causes and candidates. One Southern California ward received several e-mails urging congregants to vote for an LDS politician running for local office. And in nastier example of the practice, ward lists in Alpine, Utah were used to spread an anonymous smear campaign against a candidate on the eve of a local election.

Several Mormons told BuzzFeed that as the 2012 primaries heated up, they started to see their fellow congregants use ward lists to organize local efforts for Romney.

Here in Nevada, Ryan Erwin, a consultant for the Romney campaign, acknowledged that the candidate has benefitted from grassroots efforts by Latter-day Saints, and said the campaign is proud of their support. But he also thinks the Mormon factor has been overstated.

Mormons make up seven percent of the population here, Erwin said. If you read some of the reports in the media, youd think it was 90 percent its a little aggravating when youve worked for months to build up an organization and then they say, Well, he just won it because hes a Mormon.

That said, exit polls in 2008 showed that about 25 percent of Nevada caucus-goers self-identified as Mormon -- and Romney won that primary handily. This time around, polling indicates that hes headed for a similarly dominant victory, and if it happens, local Latter-day Saints will no doubt deserve a chunk of the credit.

Much like how Iowas Christian home-school vote advanced its own grassroots efforts for Mike Huckabee largely independently of his campaign, theres no evidence that Team Romney is officially coordinating with Mormon congregations. But anecdotal evidence suggests that a highly motivated base of Mormon supporters has effectively taken advantage of the LDS infrastructure to help Romney.

The Colonial First Ward listserv

One of the most illustrative examples is the Colonial First Ward listserv, which consists of more than 3,500 D.C.-area Mormons, many of them young and single.

E-mails obtained by BuzzFeed show the listserv being used frequently as a recruiting tool for Romney supporters -- gathering signatures to get the candidate on the Delaware ballot, requesting volunteers to aid the campaigns Illinois operation, and organizing a get-out-the-vote trip to South Carolina on the weekend of the primary.

The fruits of that last effort were obvious on the ground in Columbia, S.C., where dozens of young Mormon students from Virginia and D.C. were found rallying for Romney at various campaign stops.

But not everyone on the listserv has looked kindly upon efforts to transform the network into a booster club for Romney, and a number of members have e-mailed complaints.

Matt Larsen, a member of the listserv, wrote last October: I know Im probably going to make enemies here, but Im getting really tired of the ads for Romney campaign trips coming from this list serve. The disclaimer at the bottom of every list serve email states very clearly: Items that will not be posted/that will be removed include: promoting your business, promoting political ideologies, and inflammatory comments and rhetoric.

The protests appear to have been ignored though, with members continuing to send out e-mails as recently as last month that requested volunteer help for Romney.

The Colonial First Ward listserv seems to be a miraculous pro-Romney organizing tool, grumbled one D.C.-area Mormon, who is a Democrat. Whenever you get the contact information for 3,540 young Mormons in one place, I guess it has to be.

Of course there was racism in southern churches, northern ones too. Racist people that is. I don’t know of any church that had racism as its official policy except L.D.S.

Note carefully, that I said “I don’t know of any” if you do, please point it out to me and we can dig into its history to see if it took them until 1976 to recognize their sin.

Mitt was a grown man before 1976. Is there a record anywhere in existence showing him speaking out against official church racist policy, pre 1976? It’s a rhetorical question because I know no such documentation exists or it would have been trotted out long before now by the scum bag Romney, “scum bag” because of his politics, just a poor lost soul because of his cultism.

It’s not too late for Romney, he could change immediately and I hope that he does. I still would never vote for him though.

351
posted on 03/09/2012 11:37:06 AM PST
by Graybeard58
(Eccl 10 v. 19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.)

There was never a white man accused of a crime against a black man in THE ENTIRE SOUTH until the Lyndon Johnson presidency.

You are insane, that is the only explanation for such a stupid statement. My best friend's father, was drug out their house when she was four and hung on a tree until he was dead, in the front yard. (1953) KKK were caught went to jail for the murder.

I'll tell you where Christians were, running the underground railroad.

Based on these statements you actually probably believe it was Indians who killed all those settlers at the Mountain Meadow Massacre, instead of mormons and Smith was innocent of child rape and burning down newspapers.

There are an alleged 14 mill world wide.
7 mil probably in the US, with half of those under 18.
My uncle was a former bishop, they talked about candidates often.
My lds family believes that Romney is the fulfillment of prophesy.
There is a 98% chance that you will vote for Romney, based on current election results.
When you say jesus are you talking about the once was man and worked his way to an exalted position or the Biblical Christ who is eternal.

One was wholesale corporately and collectively exclusive using their God, Prophets, Revelations and scripture to deny fellowship and condescendingly demonstrate just how inferior another person was/is spiritually, physically, mentally and by nature as a group.

How is that God is a bigot or ever was?

How is that original sin was cleansed by Jesus Christ and that didn’t extend to those of color?

Because they are Lamanites? Says who? And just who are these Laminites? Polynesians? Blacks? Darker skinned people of the Americas?

354
posted on 03/09/2012 12:12:41 PM PST
by Vendome
(Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)

Where were all of The Christians in the south when blacks were tortured and murdered?????

As you accuse others, you yourself are, and that is clueless beyond belief. Of course being LDS it may well be purposful deception. The movement for desegregating the south was born out of many of her Churches as well as by Christians from elsewhere. And while there were more than a few churches that preached a racist tome, none codified it and canonized it like the Mormons did from day one of their existence. And by the time the Mormon "god" told a "prophet" "hey this seed of cane thing is no longer fashionable, maybe we need to fix it, it could be bad for business" many Churches oin the south had been well on the way to reconciliation. So sorry, no sale.

Aww, come on lawsone, don’t pull into your shell (turtle) on us here. Keep reading the facts, research them and come to reasonable and rational conclusions.

That the mormon church, from its inception, codified that blacks were inferior in everyway shape and form. The mormon god then showed how fickle he was and how he lacked the foresight to see that he would have to issue a “revelation” a hundred or so years later to reverse his position towards blacks.

Christians NEVER codified as part of their doctrine and scripture that blacks were cursed or inferior. Mormons did.

356
posted on 03/09/2012 12:58:41 PM PST
by SZonian
(Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)

One was wholesale corporately and collectively exclusive using their God, Prophets, Revelations and scripture to deny fellowship and condescendingly demonstrate just how inferior another person was/is spiritually, physically, mentally and by nature as a group.

How is that God is a bigot or ever was?

How is that original sin was cleansed by Jesus Christ and that didnt extend to those of color?

Because they are Lamanites? Says who? And just who are these Laminites? Polynesians? Blacks? Darker skinned people of the Americas?”

_____________________________

while the mormons tout just how well they treated their human livestock

they never mention the mass genocide they committed against the Ute Indians in order to steal Utah from them in the first place...

excerpt from Phillip Gottfredson’s ‘The Blackhawk War’:

There is no mystery or a plethora of complex reasons why the Black Hawk War happened, it’s very simple really, the Native Ute Indians of Utah were being set-upon and victimized by the United States Government and, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints-—the Mormons. The truth regarding the history of the war has since been cloaked in brilliantly managed rhetoric by the victors who blame and demonize the Ute Nation in every conceivable way, and understanding this aspect of the accounts between the Government, Church and the Native peoples is when the story becomes woefully strange, and convoluted.

There are always two sides to any war. People say, “that’s all in the past we just need to get over it.” Like their forefathers before them, the descendents of the predominate culture of Utah refuse to acknowledge the cruel mistreatment of Utah’s American Indian peoples. That demoralization and racism have become institutionalized. Utahan’s say it’s the Indian people who are to blame, “we gave them every opportunity to succeed... it’s their own damn fault.” And so remember, racism has to be taught. Children learn racism from their families, teachers and community.

What is the Ute Indians side of the story? And, why has their history, their account, their interpretation, their version been purposely ignored and long omitted from school curricula and historical accounts?

When people are denied access to their own true history by educators and institutions as both American Indians and non-Indians of Utah have been, when Indian students are forced to accept solely the victors point of view, when cultural traditions and customs of the American Indian are systematically replaced by western beliefs; when they are denied their right to speak their own language and denied their religious freedom, when they are repeatedly denied equal access to justice and protection under the law, when these things happen it then becomes cultural genocide, assimilation, a fulfillment of the Doctrine of Discovery.

“The Time has come when Indian people need to stop being victimized. They need to tell their story and demand that it be told accurately.” - Forrest S. Cuch Former Director of Indian Affairs/Member of the Ute Tribe

A Brief Synopsis of How the Black Hawk War Began
“There was a time when our people were happy and content living in the majestic mountains and fertile green valleys of Utah. Then the Mormons came, and our people were killedthe old, the young, the children, womenand many taken to reservations where many more would die.” - Member of the Ute Tribe

Christian crusaders attempted to reason with the Indian people saying they had the right to take possession of their land because the Indians were heathens, non-Christians, who didn’t believe in the bible or Jesus, the Messiah. And this is the basis for the denial of Indian rights in federal Indian law today, based upon the metaphor that the American Indians are the Canaanites or pagans in the promised land. “Consequently, the current situation of Indigenous Peoples around the world is the result of a linear program of “legal” precedent, originating with the Doctrine of Discovery and codified in contemporary national laws and policies. The Doctrine mandated Christian European countries to attack, enslave and kill the Indigenous Peoples they encountered and to acquire all of their assets” - Steven T. Newcomb Indigenous Law Institute and author of “Pagans in the Promised Land.” Also quotes from WCC Executive Committee 14-17 February 2012 Bossey, Switzerland (see also Doctrine of Discovery)

The early settlers are portrayed by the victors accounts as people who were fair-minded and of good intentions when they came to Utah. And upon arriving they were confronted by Indians whom they described as friendly toward the Mormons but later they were inaccurately and unfairly judged as barbaric wild savages who terrorized them.

In 1853 Ute leader Walkara (Black Hawk’s uncle) told interpreter M. S. Martenas, “He (Walkara) said that he had always been opposed to the whites set[t]ling on the Indian lands, particularly that portion which he claims; and on which his band resides and on which they have resided since his childhood, and his parents before himthat the Mormons when they first commenced the settlement of Salt Lake Valley, was friendly, and promised them many comforts, and lasting friendshipthat they continued friendly for a short time, until they became strong in numbers, then their conduct and treatment towards the Indians changedthey were not only treated unkindly, but many were much abused and this course has been pursued up to the presentsometimes they have been treated with much severitythey have been driven by this population from place to placesettlements have been made on all their hunting grounds in the valleys, and the graves of their fathers have been torn up by the whites.” - STATEMENT, M. S. MARTENAS, INTERPRETER Great Salt Lake City, July 6 1853 Brigham Young Papers, MS 1234, Box 58, Folder 14
LDS Archives - Will Bagley Transcription

The truth is Utah Indian people were a vibrant productive culture, and didn’t have any particular animosity toward early Mormon pioneers, only that they were trespassing on their land, whereas, according to the Book of Mormon, the church believed they had a divine right to the land and an obligation to convert Utah’s American Indians to Mormonism, according to church doctrine, and in so doing the so-called “loathsome” Indians would become a “white and delightsome people” and would be forgiven of the sins of their forefathers. (Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 5:21-23) According to church doctrine, the nature of the dark skin was a curse, the cause was the Lord, the reason was because the Lamanites “had hardened their hearts against him, (God)” and the punishment was to make them “loathsome” unto God’s people who had white skins.

“When the Ute failed to assimilate into Mormon culture, the answer was to exterminate them.” - Historian Robert Carter

“It Was Question Of Supremacy Between the White Man and the Indian”
It was in 1850 when Mormon apostle George A. Smith, cousin to Church founder Joseph Smith, declared that the Indian people “have no right to their land” and he instructed the all-Mormon legislature to “extinguish all titles” and get them out of the way and onto reservations. This set the stage for the infamous Black Hawk War that would follow. Smith was 33 years of age when making decisions affecting the lives of thousands of Native peoples.

At the age of 49 Church President Brigham Young’s victory was perhaps a hollow one for, in order to fulfill his dream, he had to destroy a civilization. He complained it was “cheaper to feed them than to fight them,” as he was spending millions in church funds equipping his private army to war against them. Brigham paid his Generals as much as $300 a month while soldiers were being paid some $16.00 a month to rid the land of it’s Indian inhabitants. Then in 1866 the United States government reimbursed Brigham some 1.5 million for military expenses. (See Memorial of the Legislative Assembly of Utah)

Brigham Young was quoted by the Denver Rocky Mountain Newspaper as saying, “You can get rid of more Indians with a sack of flour, than a keg of powder.” Just how many of the some 70,000 Indians did he get rid of? By 1909 the U.S. Census reported that the Indian population had decreased to just 2300.

The gruesome be headings of some 40 Ute corpses in 1850, heads stacked in boxes, and hung by their long hair from the eves of buildings at Fort Utah, has long been ignored, “You didn’t see the Indians beheading the Mormons.” - Historian Robert Carter

What was the motivation behind such barbarianism? Money? You guessed it, the severed heads were shipped to Washington and sold for “scientific examination.” Some heads would fetch as much as a $100 each, a small fortune in those times.

In 1863, 593 Shoshone men women and children were brutally massacred at Bear River. “As the Indians tried desperate measures to fight off the U.S. Army *(led by Patrick Edward Connor and supported by Brigham Young), including the use of tomahawks and archery, the soldiers seemed to lose all sense of control and discipline. Hundreds of corpses were left to be eaten by animals and the bones remained uncovered for years to follow”. - Rod Miller Author of Massacre at Bear River - *Words parenthesized are of my own.

“The Bear River Massacre has been ignored. It was not in the interest of key playersthe military and the Mormonsto remember..” - Salt Lake Tribune

On the night of April 21, 1866 another heinous crime was committed in Circleville, Utah, led by LDS Bishop William Jackson Allred and his son James T. S.. While being held captive in a below ground shelter, one by one , 24 in all, women, men, and children, their throats were cut . Two young boys and one girl, seven or eight years of age were told by their mother to run for their lives, and when the door was opened for the next victim to be killed the three made a break and forced their way past the guards and ran. The guards fired several shots at the three but were unable to hit them. One was shot in the side but the bullet barely grazed his rib, not enough to stop him. All of the Paiute males, five women, and two older children were murdered. The only crime that history accounts accuses these innocent victims of is that they were Indian. - (As told to me by living descendents of one of the boys who survived.)

“In those early days it was, at times, imperative that harsh measures should be used. We had to do these things, or be run over by them. It was a question of supremacy between the white man and the Indian.” - John Lowry 1894

A Few Interesting Facts To Ponder
The names “Black Hawk” and “Antonga” are they Ute Indian names? The name “Black Hawk” is not a Ute name. It was a name Brigham Young, in jest, called the Ute’s leader. So it became that Brigham Youngs supercilious term, ‘Black Hawk,’ is the name by which he is now most commonly known. In fact there were some three or more Indians the whites referred to as Black Hawk in Utah history. It was a sarcastic joke, a mockery referring to the Sauk and Fox Indian tribes (Mesquaki) under the leadership of the real Chief Black Hawk and the tragic Black Hawk War of 1832 in Illinois, where the Mormons migrated from. It was, perhaps, a sinister message to the Utes that a similar destiny awaited them.

To the Mexicans he was known as “Antonga”, also not a Ute name. Utah’s Black Hawk was born into family of legendary leaders and known to the Utes as Nuch, he was so named in honor of his people the Nuchu, a sacred name the Utes call themselves.

So, why is it called “The Black Hawk War” when there were never any black hawk Indians in Utah, or elsewhere for that matter, when none of the Indians in Utah called themselves Black Hawk? For to do so only serves to perpetuate the dark cynicism that helped to demoralize the Native peoples of Utah. You see, the story gets a lot more interesting when you talk to the Utes.

Before Chief Nuch died in 1870, deathly ill from a bullet wound he received over a year earlier at Gravelly Ford while attempting to rescue a fallen comrade, he traveled 180 miles by horse and visited every Mormon village to apologize for the pain and suffering he and his warriors had caused. He said to them, “you broken your promises, stolen our land, killed our children, men and women, and spread disease among my people.” He then asked for forgiveness and pleaded with the settlers to do the same, and end the bloodshed. “You didn’t see that happening on the part of the settlers”, said Forrest Cuch, “So it took a greater man to do such a thing. And that’s what is overlooked in the victors accounts.”

“It was white history that wrote it—that he surrendered. And no, a man like that don’t surrender. He’ll come to terms with reality. I’m done, we’re done, we, we did what we could, we’re done. But it gets written differently... And like any of us, I think you get to a point where it’s like any war, you get in and you do what you’ve got to do. And maybe there’s a family there, and you killed, killed their kids—you, as a human, that thing we all are, is going to at least make you say I’m sorry.” - Larry Cesspooch/Member of the Ute Tribe

Shocking Post War Relations
Was the Black Hawk war over in 1873 as scholars say? The Mormons got their Indian land and the Transcontinental Railroad had come through. Black Hawk died in 1870. Ninety percent of the Indian population had died since the Mormons arrived in 1847. Fifteen hundred Utes were forced to walk to the reservation in the Uintah Basin where they were abandoned, and 500 more died from starvation in the first year. Were the whites satisfied? No, not yet.

On September 20, 1919, an article appeared on the front page of the Deseret News with the headline, “Bones of Black Hawk on Exhibition L.D.S. Museum.” Within the article, the writer explains that first, the remains of Black Hawk had been on public display in the window of a hardware store in downtown Spanish Fork, Utah. Then Benjamin Guarded, the man in charge of the L.D.S. Museum, acquired the remains for public display on Temple Square. For decades, the remains of Black Hawk, and those of an Indian woman and a child, were on display in the church museum on Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City.

Just 49 years had passed since Chief Black Hawk had been laid to rest in 1870 at Spring Lake, Utah, when members of the LDS Church plotted the robbery of his grave. Accompanying the article is a photo of William E. Croff standing in the open grave, grinning ear to ear, while holding the skull of Nuch (Black Hawk). While the living descendents of Nuch were outraged, their voices fell on deaf ears. Seemingly without conscience or remorse church leaders condoned the practice, in spite of a federal law passed in 1906 called the Graves Protection Act. Descendents of Nuch had no real legal recourse until the enactment of the National American Graves Protection Reparation Act, or NAGPRA, passed in 1994.

Chief Nuch was again reburied in the year 1996. It took an act of Congress, the help of National Forest Service archeologist Charmain Thomson, and the humanitarian efforts of a boy scout Shane Armstrong to find and rebury the remains of Nuch (Black Hawk). This raises the question why a Christian religious institution and its leaders would have no compassion or respect for the family of Chief Nuch who were members of the church. Was the reason simply amusement for others? Was grave robbing for art, pleasure, punishment, a morbid fascination of death, divine obligation, or, most importantly, was it a question of supremacy between the white man and the Indian?

That you would openly sanction this action with a fringe group of your friends is something for which you all should be held to task.

- - - - -
First, we are not fringe - take a look around there are many more on here who realize Mitt’s religion IS an issue. Second my views are not wrong. I am a Christian before I am a Republican and as a Christian I cannot sanction voting for someone who lacks basic spiritual discernment and insults my Savior. I will not vote for a cultist.

I have never said they don’t have a right to practice Mormonism, but I have the SAME right to speak out against it. Freedom of religion works both ways. Yet you want to silence us because you don’t like what we are saying. How liberal of you.

Also, you seem to forget that the Constitution states that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (not even the states) cannot impose a religious test, individuals can and many states had a religious test for decades after the Constitution was ratified.

Point out where I said that candidates should be judged SOLELY on their religion. I don’t care if Mitt came out and left Mormonism and became a Baptist, I STILL wouldn’t vote for him because he would still be a lying scumbag.

Your views are anti-Christian and anti-American since you seem to want to silence my right to freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. Not conservative at all.

Mitt WILL destroy this country if he gets the nomination, either by handing it over to Obama or through his liberalism.

360
posted on 03/09/2012 1:57:46 PM PST
by reaganaut
(Ex-Mormon, now Christian "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see")

(1831 - 1844) JOSEPH SMITH Discoverer of the Golden plates, first Prophet
and Inventor of Mormonism:

“Had I anything to do with the negro , I would confine them by strict law to their own species and put them on a national equalization.’’

(1848 - 1877) BRIGHAM YOUNG 2nd Prophet and President

“...this people that are commonly called negroes are the children of old Cain. I know they are...” (Speech by Utah Gov. Brigham Young in Joint Session of the Legislature, 1852)

“You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable, sad, low in their habits, wild, and seemingly without the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”
The longtime university
religion professor Randy
Bott at LDS Church -
owned BYU argued that
Blacks were not ready for
the priesthood 
like a young child
prematurely asking for
the keys to her fathers
car.
Bott says that this ban 
“was the greatest blessing The Almighty could give them” at the time.
~ BYU religion professor
Randy Bott, Feb 2012

Professor Bott pointed to
Mormon scriptures that
indicate descendants of
the biblical Cain who killed
his brother Abel and was
cursed by God 
were turned black and
subsequently barred from
the priesthood.

He also noted that past
LDS primates suggested
that blacks were less
valiant in the sphere
known in Mormon theology
as the premortal existence.

“This baby is black.
It is a dark, ugly thing.”

Utah Senator Buttars

(1877 - 1887) JOHN TAYLOR 3rd Prophet and President

“...after the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation a upon a the earth as well as God;.. “

(1901 - 1918) JOSEPH FIELDING SMITH 10th Prophet and President

“I would not want you to believe that we bear any animosity toward the Negro. “Darkies” are wonderful people, and they have their place in our church.”

“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race.

“... and they have been ‘despised among all people.’ This doctrine did not originate with President Brigham Young but was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith ...”

Gordon Hinckley on Why it took so long to overcome racism in the LDS church— on You Yube

Jos. Smith, the inventor of Mormonism found in his translation of the Book of Abraham the rationale for withholding Mormon priesthood from Black males. In Mormon doctrine Blacks are considered to suffer from the Curse of Cain. In 1978 Black people were absolved of this curse. However the notion that Blacks as decedents of the biblical Cain, murderer of Abel, cannot be extinguished because biblical history cannot be changed.
~ Wikipedia

Disclaimer /
Clarifier:
The Book of Mormon (BOM) was not TRANSLATED CORRECTLY at first. Thousands of corrections were substituted and added later, inspired by revelation. For example, initially the BOM’s “... a white and delightsome [race of people]” had been translated incorrectly by the prophet Joseph Smith; it should have read “... light and delightsome”. Such replacements are always made without calling attention to the changes. An rare exception was, when in 1976, the LDS prophet widely publicized that it’s now OK to be a descendent of the Biblical Cain — the Black race.

Joseph Smith, translating
— correctly —
the Book of Mormon

First photograph of J. Smith Permission required. (FLDS church)

Joseph Smith, translating correctly, in this
South Park episode, “All About the Mormons”

Tarring and feathering of Joseph Smith

BRUCE R. McCONKIE of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles
The negroes are not equal with other races when the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned...”

...As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the negroes”

“Cain Ham, and the whole negro race have _ cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.”
MARK E. PETERSON of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles

“At least in the cases of the Lamanites and the negroes we have the definite word of the Lord Himself that He placed a dark skin upon them as a curse - as a punishment and as a sign to all others.

” If there is one drop of negro blood in my children, as I have read to you, they receive the curse, There isn’t any argument, therefore, as to intermarriage with the Negro, is there? “Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest kind of education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it.

ORSON PRATT of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles

“The Lord has not kept them in store for five or six thousand years past, and kept them waiting for their bodies all this time to send them among the Hottentots, the African Negroes, the idolatrous Hindoos, or any other of the fallen nations of the earth

SPENCER W. KIMBALL:
“Lamanites” is the Book of Mormon term for Native Americans. The quote below is from a Mormon General Conference talk given by Spencer W. Kimball in 1960. Spencer W. Kimball became the president of the Mormon Church in 1975.

“The day of the Lamanites in nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. [...] The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.

At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl- sixteen- sitting between the darker father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents- on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.”

The above quotes by Mormon Primates are brief. Read on if you would like to see the comments in their fuller context, along with their sources.

Mormon Scripture is quietly and systematically being cleaned up. For example, the ‘Mormon Doctrine’ by Mormonism’s chief apologist, Bruce McConkie, is being revised regularly. Much of the condemnation of Blacks has been censored away. You may have to track down some older copies in libraries to verify the veracity of this web page.

Much of this text is also given at various ‘Truer’ Christian web sites, each with its own axe to grind. These sites dredge up the ugly side of Mormonism to bolster their own view of THE TRUTH. One such site is Saints Alive In Jesus

Click to continue

These LDS Seers and Revelators silently acquiesced in in the Mormon condemnation of black and Indian people. It is noteworthy than none disagreed.

In all fairness —

In June in 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball spoke with The Heavenly Father, who lives on the planet Kolob. Afterwards, an announcement was made — without any doctrinal statement — which only said the Lord had indicated that the time for change had come. Blacks could now become full participants in the church, if they are worthy.”

But No doctrinal statement was given.

Mormonism can never correct its denigrating view of Blacks and Indians. To do so would mean that the scriptures aren’t true. It would mean that the war in the ‘pre-existence’, on Kolob might, after all, not have caused the devil to mix his blood with that of Cain. Then, Cain could not have fathered all black skinned children...

A doctrinal statement to gloss over this racist Mormon business is therefore not possible. Mormonism could not survive it.

To correct the bigotry now would mean that Joseph Smith could not have translated the golden plates. Perhaps Smith could not even translate anything at all! Perhaps he couldn’t read Egyptian, to boot. Could it be that Smith was a fraud and Mormonism is his colossal hoax? If so it would mean an unthinkable loss of tithing revenue for church coffers.

A Mormon recantation of its racist foundation cannot happen because racism is directly hard-wired into the source code of the entire program.

However, with the change of the Negroes receiving the Priesthood in 1978, Mormon leaders are attempting to cover up this embarrassing teaching concerning skin color.

Although the Mormon Church will not make available the handwritten manuscript of the Book of Mormon, the R.L.D.S. Church has the handwritten printers copy, which was given to the printer to set the type for the first printing. It too, agrees with the 1830 Edition. It reads “white”. (off-site link)

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

363
posted on 03/09/2012 1:59:39 PM PST
by Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)

By comparison, blacks could be members of the LDS Church, they could drink and eat wherever they chose. They were never slaves or brutalized.

- - - -
Fail. There was slavery in Deseret and slaves were given as tithing. Also a black woman was sealed to Smith to be a slave in the CK.

Also, you seem to completely miss the point. The fact that Mormonism had the doctrine in the FIRST place proves it is not the ‘true church’. God isn’t a racist, if Mormonism were ever ‘true’, then it wouldn’t have had the doctrine ever.

366
posted on 03/09/2012 2:03:21 PM PST
by reaganaut
(Ex-Mormon, now Christian "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see")

I so love folks who get on here and speak with such high minded confidence about freedom of religion and how wrong and bigoted people are etc. whilst displaying both a total lack of understanding such concepts as well as doing the very thing they are incorrectly condemning.

My sense is, Elsie, that President Reagan was never much worried about their religious beliefs. He seemed to have a lot of respect for individuals beliefs. But maybe you can dig up some quotes of him trashing a particular religion or two.

372
posted on 03/09/2012 2:14:58 PM PST
by sand lake bar
(You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.)

I so love folks who get on here and speak with such high minded confidence about freedom of religion and how wrong and bigoted people are etc. whilst displaying both a total lack of understanding such concepts as well as doing the very thing they are incorrectly condemning. It is rather amusing really...

Mormons are hypocrites!

Try to go to Rick Santorum’s website. Romney's Mormons have the filthiest and most profane messages I have ever seen; and I am married to an x-sailor. The crude and vulgar messages that I think liberals would not do. I heard last week that romney was targeting Rick though the web, I didn't think much of it.

The really sad thing is that homeschoolers learning about politics go to these sites to learn candidates platform. These poor kids are going to see things that will take away there innocence. Rick's facebook is also being hit by the mormons. You would think they would want to talk up their guy on his page. No they have to go to Rick's and call him foul names.

After this primary, we have learned what the mormon’s believe and how far they will go to get power.

373
posted on 03/09/2012 2:22:51 PM PST
by Linda Frances
(Only God can change a heart, but we can pray for hearts to be changed.)

Mormons seems to have a peculiar—and prejudiced—fascination with tales of a large, ominous, ape-like, black-skinned “Bigfoot” (who, they swear, is actually Cain), condemned by the Mormon God to wander the Earth where he ends up scaring the faithful into invoking the Mormon priesthood in order to drive big, bad Bigfoot away.

Yet another website, identifying itself as “Mormon Mentality: Thoughts and Asides by a Peculiar People,” headlines claims of Mormon encounters with Bigfoot whom their Mormon observers claim as being Cain.

A self-described researcher on this last site writes about having produced an historical investigative paper on latter-day Mormon run-ins with Cain, alias Bigfoot:

“[My] paper is based on David Patten?s story of encountering Cain, whom he described as very tall and covered in dark hair, in 1835, as described in a letter published in Lycurgus Wilson?s biography of Patten. Spencer Kimball copied the letter in ‘Miracle of Forgiveness.’”

The writer also makes reference to Seth Lester’s book, “Clan of Cain,” describing it as follows:

“I . . . mention [that book] in the paper. Lester begins the novel by fictionalizing Patten?s story in a prologue, then jumps forward to the present day. He bases his Bigfoot mythology on the Patten story, and gives Cain a family of other Bigfoot-type creatures.”

Continuing, he claims, “I found evidence, including a poem referencing the event by Eliza R. Snow and records of Quorum of the Twelve meetings, that this story was widely circulated in the 19th century.

“In [the] Church Archives I found a similar story—a page marked ‘from the papers of E. Wesley Smith,’ mission president in Hawaii in the 1920s and brother of Joseph Fielding Smith, describing Wesley?s meeting with Cain, and explaining that his brother told him of David Patten?s encounter. . . . “

“. . . As to [E. Wesley] Smith, I don?t have the materials on hand, but the gist of it is as follows:

“The manuscript I cite is in [the] Church Archives. It describes Wesley being attacked by a huge, hairy creature, whom Smith drives off in the name of Christ and by the power of the priesthood. He then goes to Joseph Fielding Smith, who tells Wesley that it was Cain, and gives him a copy of Patten?s own story, which would seem to imply that Fielding believed it, if the manuscript is to be believed.”

“I tied all this evidence, together with numerous folk tales about Cain, into 19th-century Mormon conceptions of evil, arguing that a physical, embodied Cain represented the very material conception of the struggle between good and evil that Mormon leaders expounded upon then—Heber Kimball being harassed by demons in England and such.

“More recently, however, particularly after the ban on African men holding the priesthood has been lifted, such conceptions of evil have shifted; Cain is no longer seen as literally the father of the African race, as folk doctrine once held, and evil is now experienced as wrong action rather than in terms of demonic, physical confrontation.

“Thus, Cain?s identification as Bigfoot has provided Mormons with a way to assimilate the claims of folktale with new conceptions of what Cain, the embodiment of evil, should be like.”

In the end, the researcher offers a qualifier of sorts:

“. . . I?ve purposely avoided making my own judgment calls about truth claims here—indeed, I avoid making arguments about it in the paper in favor of merely discussing the ways Mormons have thought about the folklore.

“However, none of the sources I?ve dug through describe Cain as being translated; rather, they discuss his state as a ‘curse’—Cain himself, in the Patten story, describes himself as a ‘very miserable creature, who could not die;’ Joseph Fielding Smith, in the Wesley Smith story, uses similar wording that I don?t want to try to reproduce from memory.

“It is true that virtually all assume Cain has a body; there?s some minor theology going on about his relationship to Satan because of that. The state of that body, though, would lend credence to the curse rather than translation theory—he?s warped and animalistic, universally describes as hideous and almost subhuman. Far from a translated body.”

Nelson spins the yarn of a character named “Alvin Sands” who claims to have ultimately encountered Bigfoot, after having first become fascinated consumed with reported sightings of the creature.

According to one of these sightings, Sands recounts that a logging truck driver spotted a “a brown ape-man run[ning] down the road in front of his logging truck. In another, he repeats the claim of someone out in the woods chopping down lodgepole pine spotted “a 300-pound black-haired ape man not more than 30 feet away, in broad daylight.”

In Nelson’s story, the Bigfoot-consumed Sands talks about setting for himself “a cause, a mission, a goal . . . [of] gather[ing] all the information I could about these strange animals.”

Where does Sands turn in his efforts to acquire that information? To resources provided by the Mormon Church.
Says Sands: “Through the periodical index in the Brigham Young University library, I dug out and studied every article ever published on Bigfoot, Sasquatch or the Abominable Snowmen.”
_____

While author Nelson admits that his book’s main tale is fictional (albeit leaving that confession to its final pages), he acknowledges that “I wonder about some of the other accounts . . . The people I personally interviewed were convinced they had really seen what they described to me. . . . As long as nobody finds a Sasquatch that can undergo scientific scrutiny, the speculation will continue, as more and more sightings are recorded. Bigfoot sightings began in the early 1800’s when a trapper and trader by the name of David Thompson reported in his log the discovery of hug man-like tracks over 15 inches long. During the last 15 years nearly 1,000 sightings and tracks have been reported.”

So, do true-believing, Cain-fearing Mormons actually subscribe to the notion that Bigfoot is literally the evil, murderous brother of Abel?

Odds are that some of them definitely do—and they can blame their kooky Mormon leaders for that mind-numbing and -dumbing notion.
_____

—ACCORDING TO TRADITIONAL MORMON BELIEF, BIGFOOT IS, IN FACT, CAIN

As mentioned earlier, a claimed sighting of Cain/Bigfoot was made by early Mormon missionary David Patten:

” . . . David W. Patten, during his mission in the South . . . reported that, as he rode his horse, a large Black man covered with hair appeared beside him and told him that he was Cain and was going to destroy his mission.”

In support of the historic likelihood that the notion has circulated in Mormon circles claiming LDS missionaries have actually spotted Cain/Bigfoot, Spencer W. Kimball, in his book, “The Miracle of Forgiveness,” describes Patten’s encounter with Cain in decidedly Bigfoot-like terms:

“On the sad character Cain, an interesting story comes to us from Lycurgus A. Wilson’s book on the life of David W. Patten.

“From the book I quote an extract from a letter by Abraham O. Smoot giving his recollection of David Patten’s account of meeting ‘a very remarkable person who had represented himself as being Cain’:

“’As I was riding along the road on my mule I suddenly noticed a very strange personage walking beside me. . . . His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark.

“I asked him where he dwelt and he replied that he had no home, that he was a wanderer in the Earth and traveled to and fro. He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of men.

“About the time he expressed himself thus, I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, and commanded him to go hence, and he immediately departed out of my sight. . . .’”

Others—including non-Mormons—have referenced Kimball’s account as evidence that Cain is (at least the mind of the Mormon true believer) the legendary Bigfoot, as “told time and time again within the Mormon religion.”

“. . . I would like to touch on a different aspect of Bigfoot and an encounter that has been told time and time again within the Mormon religion. My work takes me all over the United States for many different training seminars and conferences. Recently, I met up with several people of the Mormon faith.

“One of these people, knowing of my interest in Bigfoot, suggested that I look into the ‘Mormon connection,’ The following story comes from my research on this topic.

“David Patten was a Mormon Priest who traveled and preached the Mormon gospel from 1832-1838. In author Spencer W. Kimball’s book entitled ‘The Miracle of Forgiveness,’ there is a passage where David Patten is quoted regarding his meeting with ‘a very remarkable person who had represented himself as Cain.’”

—ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL MORMON DOCTRINE, CAIN WAS “CURSED” BY GOD WITH BIGFOOT-LIKE BLACK SKIN AND APPEARANCE

While some nervous, publicity-sensitive Mormon apologists may attempt to deny Mormon-manufactured lineage links between Cain and Bigfoot, the fact remains that high LDS leaders like Kimball have made clear and undeniable connections between a cursed black Cain/Bigfoot and people of African lineage.

Indeed, it is a matter of basic LDS doctrine that Black people descended from Cain.

To be sure, the Mormon Church has, from its earliest days and through the mouth of its presidents and apostles, officially declared that the black-skinned “curse of Cain” was made manifest by the Mormon God in the skin pigmentation of those of African lineage.
_____

Joseph Smith preached that Blacks were the offspring of Cain, as recorded in his own journal:

“In the evening debated with John C. Bennett and others to show that the Indians have greater cause to complain of the treatment of the whites, than the Negroes, or sons of Cain.”

(Joseph Smith, “History of the Church,” vol. 4, p. 501)
_____

Mormon Church president Brigham Young slurred people born with a black skin, labeling them the depraved, decadent descendants of the murderous Cain and consigning them to perpetual slavery, as willed and until ended by the Mormon God:

“You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

“The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.

“Trace mankind down to after the Flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race—that they should be the ‘servant of servants’ and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree.

“How long is that race to endure the dreadful curse that is upon them? That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof. Until the last ones of the residue of Adam?s children are brought up to that favorable position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood.

“They were the first that were cursed, and they will be the last from whom the curse will be removed. When the residue of the family of Adam come up and receive their blessings, then the curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will receive the blessings in like proportion . . . .”

To place the official stamp of doctrinal approval on his “blame-Cain-for-the-Negroes” utterances, LDS president Young then closed his above racist diatribe by declaring to the Mormon faithful assembled to hear his words:

“I bless you all, inasmuch as you have desired and striven to do right, to revere the name of Deity, and to exalt the character of his Son on the earth. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ! Amen.”

Future president of the Mormon Church Wilford Woodruff also announced that, according to official LDS doctrine, Blacks carried the heaven-imposed, color-coded “curse” of Cain:

“What was that mark? It was the mark of blackness. That mark rested upon Cain, and descended upon his posterity from that time until the present.

“Today there are millions of the descendants of Cain, through the lineage of Ham, in the world, and that mark of darkness still rests upon them.”

(Wilford Woodruff, “Millennial Star,” vol. 51, p. 329)
_____

Further, according to the official LDS publication, the “Juvenile Instructor,? the Mormon God punished those who had turned against the divine will by creating them for Earth life as the black-tainted and divinely-segregated seed of Cain, just as Mormons taught that he had similarly cursed sinful Native Americans with a brown skin:

“The mark set upon Cain was without doubt such a mark as was placed upon the descendants of the rebellious sons of Lehi . . . We are expressly informed by that ‘the Lord did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.’

“They were to be made loathsome to the people of God, unless they repented of their iniquities. Not only did this curse fall upon them, but all they who intermarried with them, or mingled with them, were cursed with the same blackness and loathsomeness . . .

“From this it is very clear that the mark which was set upon the descendants of Cain was a skin of blackness, and there can be no doubt that this was the mark that Cain himself received; in fact, it has been noticed in our day that men who have lost the spirit of the Lord, and from whom his blessings have been withdrawn have turned dark to such an extent as to excite the comments of all who have known them.”

(”Juvenile Instructor,” vol. 26, p. 635)
_____

People of black skin, the Mormon Church’s “Juvenile Instructor” also declared, are supposedly identifiable as being ?pure Negro?:

“Their skin is quite black, their hairy woolly and black, their intelligence stunted, and they appear never to have arisen from the most savage state of barbarism.”

(ibid.)
_____

Continuing Mormonism’s historic, bigoted blatherings, LDS apostle and eventual LDS Church president Joseph Fielding Smith condescendingly taught that people of African descent are the sub-par relatives of Cain:

“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. . . .

“. . . [W]e will hope that blessings may eventually be given to our Negro brethren, for they are our brethren?children of God—notwithstanding their black covering emblematical of eternal darkness.” (

(Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Way to Perfection,” pp. 101-102)
_____

Likewise, Joseph Fielding Smith?s son-in-law, apostle Bruce R. McConkie, taught that people of African descent were cemented into the direct genealogical lineage of Cain—with Cain being the original human son of perdition:

“Though he was a rebel and an associate of Lucifer in pre-existence, and though he was a liar from the beginning, whose name was ?Perdition,? Cain managed to attain the privilege of mortal birth.

“Under Adam?s tutelage, he began in this life to serve God. He understood the Gospel and the plan of salvation, was baptized, received the priesthood, had a perfect knowledge of the position and perfection of God, and talked personally with Deity.

“Then he came out in open rebellion, fought God, worshiped Lucifer, and slew Abel. . . .

“As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those spirits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born through his lineage.

“He became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition. As a result of his mortal birth he is assured of a tangible body of flesh and bones in eternity, a fact which will enable him to rule over Satan.”

—ACCORDING TO MORMON DOCTRINE, DESCENDANTS OF CAIN RECEIVED THEIR “CURSED” BLACK SKIN BECAUSE OF PRE-EXISTENT SIN

High-ranking Mormon leader and member of the Council of the Seventy B.H. Roberts explained how it was that, through Cain, Blacks were cursed in Mormonism’s world with a dark skin:

“Now, why is it that the seed of Ham was cursed to the pertaining of the Priesthood? Why is it that his seed could not have the right to the Priesthood? Ham?s wife was named ?Egyptus, which is forbidden: . . . and thus from Ham sprang the race which preserved the curse in the land.? Was she a descendant of Cain, who was cursed for murdering his brother?

“And was it by Ham marrying her, and she being saved from the flood in the ark, that the race which preserved the curse in the land was perpetuated?

“If so, then I believe that race is the one through which it is ordained those spirits that were not valiant in the great rebellion in heaven should come; who rendered themselves unworthy of the Priesthood and its powers, and hence it is withheld from them to this day.” (B.H. Roberts, in Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Way to Perfection.”

(Salt Lake City, Utah: The Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1958), pp. 104-105)
_____

LDS bigotry booster John J. Stewart, in his book, “Mormonism and the Negro,” defended this supposed color curse as a ?divinely directed policy,” intended by God as punishment for Blacks’ misbehavior in the pre-existence—punishment that is manifested through the demonized, dark-skinned lineage of Cain and that ?has been affirmed by the Church leaders of our day?:

“Cain, a son of Adam and Eve, apparently had quite a different record in the Spirit world. He was likely one of the valiant ones there, and thus was born into this world under the most favorable circumstances, of noble sire and mother, and was even privileged to walk and talk with God.

“Yet, Cain fell to the temptations of Satan, rejected God, murdered his brother Abel and thus brought upon himself a curse . . .

“Among the Negroid people, as indeed among all the races of the Earth, there is infinite variety and degree of circumstances of birth, of goodness, of opportunity or lack of it. There are Negroes born into families of wealth and refinement, others who are blessed with great talents and there are those born into the lowest classes of society in Africa, in squalor and ignorance, living out their lives in a fashion akin to that of the animals.

“Does not this infinite variety of circumstance give further evidence of man?s being assigned that station in life which he has merited by his performance in the pre-mortal existence?

“Note, also, that part of Cain?s curse was to have as his posterity those spirits unable to bear the Priesthood in this life. In view of the importance that humans rightly attach to their children, their posterity, what greater curse could come upon Cain, as pertaining to this life? And what could be more appropriate than for these spirits to have such a man as Cain as their progenitor? . . .

“In the . . . scripture from Abraham . . . we have a reliable account of the early genealogy of the Negro race, and in Abraham?s comments we have further evidence of the divine direction in the LDS Church policy of not allowing the Negro, the seed of Cain and Ham, to bear the Priesthood.”

Stewart then adds this hollow-sounding caveat, before moving on to condemn salvation-stopping marital race-mixing:

“There is nothing in Church policy that forbids nor discourages us from extending brotherly Christian love to the Negro.

“This, however, does not and should not include intermarriage, for we would bring upon our children the curse of Cain, or rather, we would bring unto ourselves children from those spirits destined to be of the seed of Cain.”

(John J. Stewart, “Mormonism and the Negro: An Explanation and Defense of the Doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints in Regard to Negroes and Others of Negroid Blood” [Orem, Utah: Bookmark Division of Community Press Publishing Company, 1960], pp. 39, 44-46, 53-54]
____

Similarly devoted to defending Mormonism’s White supremacist race-based curse of Cain, Mormon author John L. Lund, in his book, “The Church and the Negro: A Discussion of Mormons, Negroes and the Priesthood,” argues that LDS prophets have definitively settled the question by confirming that descendants of Cain were marked by the Mormon God with a dark skin:

“On the subject of the mark of Cain, our prophets have given all the important information that is necessary for our salvation.

“Frankly, President Brigham Young has told us that the mark of Cain was a ‘black skin.’ . . . For the Latter-day Saint no further explanation is required.

“However, it is not necessary to rely on this single statement to arrive at this same conclusion. There are numerous references made by both ancient and modern prophets that point to the fact that Cain was the father of the race that became known as Negroid.”

—OFFICIAL LDS FIRST PRESIDENCY STATEMENTS HAVE LINKED THE MORMON “CURSE” OF A BLACK SKIN DIRECTLY TO CAIN

The LDS Church’s First Presidency has officially defended the denial of the LDS priesthood to Blacks on the basis of their Cain “curse,” declaring it to have been a divinely-commanded consequence arising from the supposed sinful pre-mortal behavior of those who were eventually destined by the Mormon God to be branded with blackness:

“The few known facts about our pre-Earth life and our entrance into mortality must be taken into account in any attempt at an explanation . . . [including] . . . the Negro . . . [being] punished or allotted to a certain position on this Earth . . . through the loins of Cain because of his [the Negro’s] failure to achieve other stature in the spirit world.

(LDS Church First Presidency Statement, 17 August 1951, quoted in William E. Berrett, “The Church and the Negroid People,” Supplement to “Mormonism and the Negro,” pp. 16-18)
_____

Confirming its official race-based, pre-Earth life, curse-of-Cain doctrine, the LDS First Presidency (this time in a 1947 letter to Dr. Lowry Nelson, former head of Brigham Young University’s Department of Sociology) stated emphatically:

“Indeed, some of God’s children were assigned to superior positions before the world was formed. We are aware that some higher critics do not accept his but the Church does.

“Your position seems to lose sight of the revelation of the Lord touching the pre-existence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven and the doctrine that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born, have a relationship in the life heretofore.”

The First Presidency concluded this official sanction of Mormon Church-approved racial bigotry by declaring:

“We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in [the] area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”

(LDS First Presidency statement, quoted in Stewart, “Mormonism and the Negro,? pp. 46-47)

*****

—SO, THIS IS HOW THE TRAJECTORY OF SKIN-COLOR “CURSING” TAKES ITS COURSE IN THE MORMON REALITY MENTALITY:

—First, Cain murders Abel.

—Therefore, the Mormon God punishes Cain by cursing Cain with a black skin.

—The Mormon God (whose apparent curse of choice is altering people’s skin color) also blights the pigment of those of African descent, punishing them with a black skin as well, and then proceeds to channel them into a deliberately- and divinely-decreed inferior non-White Earth life through the lineage of the “cursed” Cain—all because they supposedly weren’t deservingly valiant in their pre-mortal lives to earn themselves a white skin.

—Finally, according to historic LDS teaching, Mormons have actually spotted Cain wandering around the Earth in modern times as a black-skinned, hairy, loathsome, miserable and cursed creature—the supposedly damned, decadent father of the Mormon God-punished and -black swathed African race.
_____

Where’s the nearest exit out of this hateful, primitive, silly, superstitious Mormon Cult?

essing from the Bigots: Black Mormon-”Owned” Slaves in Heaven—Only the Best for the “Cursed”

One such Mormon-”owned” slave was Jane Elizabeth Manning James—otherwise known among her Mormon friends and White overseers as “Aunt Jane.”

Aunt Jane was a faithful Black Mormon convert who worked in the household of Joseph and Emma Smith. After years of faithful belief and devotion to clean-up duty, she had the audacity to repeatedly petition the leaders of the Mormon Church to be sealed via temple endowment to her husband, but was denied her request by the Quorum of the Twelve.

Instead, she was made to settle for her White “owner,” Joseph Smith—as his slave for time and all eternity:

“The Territory of Utah gave up the practice of slavery along with the slave-holding states; however, the fact that they countenanced it when it was being practiced shows how insensitive they were to the feelings of black people. Even after the slaves were set free the Mormons continued to talk against blacks. In the year 1884, Angus M. Cannon said that ‘a colored man . . . is not capable of receiving the Priesthood, and can never reach the highest Celestial glory of the Kingdom of God.’ (’The Salt Lake Tribune,’ October 5, 1884)

“The idea that blacks were inferior and should only be servants to the whites persisted in Mormon theology. In fact, Mormon leaders seemed to feel that blacks would still be servants in heaven. On August 26, 1908, President Joseph F. Smith related that a black woman was sealed as a servant to Joseph Smith:

“’The same efforts he said had been made by Aunt Jane to receive her endowments and be sealed to her husband and have her children sealed to their parents and her appeal was made to all the Presidents from President Young down to the present First Presidency. But President Cannon conceived the idea that, under the circumstances, it would be proper to permit her to go to the temple to be adopted to the Prophet Joseph Smith as his servant and this was done. This seemed to ease her mind for a little while but did not satisfy her, and she still pleaded for her endowments.’ (’Excerpts From The Weekly Council Meetings Of The Quorum Of The Twelve Apostles,’ as printed in ‘Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?,’ p. 584).

“The idea that a black is only worthy of the position of a servant has deep roots in Mormon theology. Mark E. Petersen, . . . [former] Apostle in the church, once said that if a ‘Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.’ (’Race Problems-As They Affect The Church,’ a speech delivered at Brigham Young University, August 27, 1954).”

Jane Elizabeth Manning James (1813-1908)—even in faith, a victim of Mormon bigotry, RIP:

“Jane Elizabeth Manning was born in Wilton, Connecticut, one of five children of Isaac and Phyllis Manning, a free black family. Although Jane was a member of the local Presbyterian Church, she remained spiritually unfulfilled until 1842 when she heard the message of a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . .

“Soon afterwards she joined the Mormon Church. One year following her conversion, Jane Elizabeth and several family members who had also converted decided to move to Nauvoo, Illinois, the headquarters of the Mormon Church. After traveling by boat to Buffalo, New York, the African American Mormons, unable to pay additional fares, began an eight-hundred-mile journey by foot to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo, Jane lived and worked in the home of Joseph Smith, Jr. the founder of the LDS Church and his wife, Emma.

“Following the 1844 murder of Joseph Smith, Jr. and his brother Hyrum in Carthage, Illinois, Mormon leaders under Brigham Young decided to abandon Nauvoo and look for a safe haven in the West away from forces hostile to the LDS Church.

“In the fall of 1847, Jane, her husband Isaac James whom she married in 1841, and two sons traveled across the plains to the new home of the LDS Church in the Salt Lake Valley. They were the first free black pioneers in the Mormon settlement and Jane would spend the remaining fifty-one years of her life in Utah. They shared the hardships of their fellow Mormons and engaged in the spirit of mutual aid and cooperation that characterized LDS pioneer life.

“By the 1880s Jane became increasingly concerned about her place in the afterlife. Well aware of the LDS Church’s proscriptions that prohibited blacks from full participation in the rituals that were prerequisite to being eligible for a place in the celestial kingdom, she nonetheless argued for an exemption because of her faith.

“’Is there no blessing for me?’ she asked Church leaders for more than a decade. Those leaders refused her requests. They attempted to pacify her by authorizing her limited participation in LDS rituals.

“Through it all, Jane Manning James remained a devout Mormon and is generally recognized in LDS history for her unwavering faith. Jane Manning James died in Salt Lake City in 1908.

“A special monument to her is located in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, close to her gravesite, to commemorate her life and faith.”

That “limited participation in LDS rituals,” as it is euphemistically described above, is more fully laid out on pp. 152-157 of Coleman’s biography of “Aunt Jane.” There it is painfully detailed how, despite her faithfulness—and only because of her so-called “cursed” race—she was relentlessly denied her personal plea for access to the Mormon temple for her own family sealing endowment.

The First Presidency also rejected her request to be adopted, via temple sealing, into the family of Joseph and Emma Smith, in whose home she faithfully worked as a servant.

The First Presidency eventually, out of the kindness of their white-and-delightsome hearts, did permit her to be eternally sealed to Joseph Smith as his servant.

More on the patronizing treatment she received from the Mormon Church:

” . . . [H]ave you wondered why Jane walked to Nauvoo? It was because white Mormons would not allow her to ride with them or assist her in paying for passage. And once she arrived in Nauvoo the Beautiful, that ‘Zion on the Mississippi,’ she was either rebuffed or ignored by her fellow Saints, until finally someone pointed out Joseph Smith’s home to her.

“Once she finally did meet Smith, he made Jane his house servant, and when Smith was murdered in 1844, Brigham Young then took in Jane James as his servant as well. Despite her faithful service to the church and its wealthy presidents, she lived most of her life in abject poverty.

“She arrived in the new Zion of Utah among the first of the Saints in September 1847, the first free black woman in the territory, only to find that slavery was already being practiced there. Mormon Apostle Charles C. Rich owned slaves in Utah, which must have been a great trial of her faith. The only Western State or Territory to practice slavery was Utah.

“She wished to be ‘sealed’ to her loved ones for all eternity just like the white-skinned members of the congregation were allowed to be. For all of her sacrifice, the highest eternal blessing the Mormon church could offer Joseph Smith’s former house servant was to ‘seal’ her to Joseph Smith as his servant forever.

“The words recited at this ceremony were that she was ‘to be attached as a Servitor for eternity to the prophet Joseph Smith and in this capacity be connected with his family and be obedient to him in all things in the Lord as a faithful Servitor.’

“In essence, an eternal slave, bound to service a white master for eternity.”

The other hypocrites I love here are the ones here who start accusing those of us who point out the truth about Mormonism and the reason we take issue with voting for a Mormon and start lecturing us about the freedom of religion as if we sit oin the doors of every Mormon temple and stop their members from attending Church.

Funnier still is that they themselves in trying to "shame" us into silence are in many ways attempting (miserably)to impede our right to practice our faith which tells us to point out false teachers and use our moral conscience to guide our Earthly decisions.

I could give a flying -— what you believe. When romney exposes innocents kids to trash like he has, he will have to answer to God for that.
It must be scary to wonder what you god will want you to believe tomorrow.

THE ONE TRUE GOD WHO NEVER CHANGES.

382
posted on 03/09/2012 3:00:18 PM PST
by Linda Frances
(Only God can change a heart, but we can pray for hearts to be changed.)

Um, Linda, I am on your side. I am pointing out that those who say we are “bashing” Mormons when we point out their hypocrisy and heretical anti Christian nature and tell us we are infringing on their freedom of religion and their rights when we do so are they themselves the ones that are in the wrong.

I’m really sorry. I misread that. I’m just really mad because I have a lot homeschools in my family and friends. If you seen what I saw you would understand. This is way out of line. I wish Rick knew what romney is doing, kids are seeing.

386
posted on 03/09/2012 3:15:33 PM PST
by Linda Frances
(Only God can change a heart, but we can pray for hearts to be changed.)

" and whatever points are being "civilly" discused here (today, in this thread) ...

will like the eighty-year old Sunday School Ladies Christmas Tea ...

compared to what the News Media will do with this information. "

not trying to give libs ammo

but all Zero has to do when he debates Romney

is open with a sucker punch "well, mitt, are you riding in on your White Horse to remove the Mark of Cain from the white house?"

then, while Romney has a moment of vocal epilepsy, follow with a straight left "what's the matter? is it difficult for you to debate one as 'black and loathesome' as myself?" pause, right cross "you know, some people would complain i'm not black enough, but not Bishop Romney...according to his faith, my lighter skin means God approves of me more than my darker brothers and sisters..."

and turn to the moderator and deliver the knockout uppercut: "i think our nation is going through a period of trial that has exacerbated racial divides, and the last thing this nation needs are leaders who believe black people are under a curse from God...frankly, the idea of a man entering into the highest office in the land, who can look at innocent children like my two daughters, and believe they are cursed because of the color of their skin, sickens me. it's a clear illustration of the innate racism of the republican party and just how far the radical right will go to destroy the successes this administration has achieved because they want a leader to replace the curse of having a black man in the office of the president...i am appalled..."

sorry if it hurts, but if i'm half toked and can strategize this easily, the dimlibs will figure it out in a few months...

“Your views are anti-Christian and anti-American since you seem to want to silence my right to freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. Not conservative at all.”

Quite and interesting defense against the indefensible.

You forgot that I like to kick puppies, and steal ice-cream from babies.

Please don’t ping me to this stale thread anymore. All the points have been made that are going to be made, and your attempt to remake your position to seem less offensive to American values are disingenuous.

Look around, there are many more around here who agree with me than with you. You seem to be the only one who is offended. Why is that? Because you support Mittens or because you are realizing your claim is wrong and unconstitutional.

I call it as it is, you are claiming I am anti-American yet you are the one trying to silence us.

Fail on your part, big time.

399
posted on 03/09/2012 6:05:31 PM PST
by reaganaut
(Ex-Mormon, now Christian "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see")

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.